These Things We Do
by YourDarkMistress
Summary: Practicing Magic is punishable by death. Owning a MagicBook is punishable by death. Facilitating the practice of Magic is punishable by death. But it's not a choice for those who do. Full summary inside. Chapter 3: Gilbert
1. Part 1: Roderich

Full Summary: Practicing Magic is punishable by death. Owning a MagicBook is punishable by death. Facilitating the practice of Magic is punishable by death. But it's not a choice for those who do. The MagicBooks choose you, and practicing becomes a compulsion. As more and more children and adolescents are indoctrinated into the world of Magic, they are pulled into a war that should not be theirs to fight. Will contain many characters and multiple pairings.

**These Things We Do **

**Part 1: Roderich **

"Gilbert!" Elizaveta called over the wall. She and Roderich had been waiting for their friend and fellow run-away for almost an hour now, and he was still on the other side. If he took any longer, their plan would fail and the three of them would be dragged back to their parents and beaten until their whole bodies were purple. "Gilbert! Are you there?"

There was a huff on the other side and she smiled. "Y-yeah," he panted. He sounded like he had been running for a while. "Stand back, I'm coming over!" Elizaveta and Roderich took a step back and not a second later a satchel flew over the stone and landed precisely where Roderich had been standing. The young aristocrat sharply inhaled and his eyes widened. The bag was followed a few moments later by the boy who owned it, landing gracefully on his feet.

"Thank God, we were getting worried you'd been caught," Elizaveta chastised, running her fingers through her newly cropped hair. Her chest was still flat so when she wore pants and her hair was short she looked like a little boy rather than a little girl. "Then we'd all be in the shit."

"Knee deep," Gilbert agreed. "And I almost was. I think my father is on to us, and he followed me around all morning. He cornered me in the library and I told him I was just nervous about exams next week. What a looser."

"Exams aren't for losers, Gilbert," Roderich said quietly, shaking his head. "They're for people who want to do something productive with their lives."

Gilbert scoffed. "Yeah, I'm a fighter, not a thinker. You of all people should know that by now." He winked. Roderich blushed.

"Anyway," Elizaveta continued, "We'd better get going. If we want to make it to the city line by nightfall we would have had to have left two hours ago." She tried to lift Gilbert's satchel and frowned. It was much heavier than she had thought it would be.

"What have you got in here, Gil, bricks?"

"Nah, just some food and a few books I filched from the library. I figured if there isn't anything interesting in them we could at least sell them for a pretty high price. They're all leather-bound." He took his bag from her and pulled himself to his full height, which was not all that impressive. He was two years younger than Elizaveta and three years younger than Roderich – who was the only of the group even having begun to go through puberty – and was therefore the smallest. "Now come on, let's go."

The hike through the woods was far from pleasant but not nearly as unbearable as the three had initially feared. They didn't run into any bears or wolves or wildcats, though the spiders were a force to be reckoned with and more than once Elizaveta had been forced to climb a tree to retrieve her youngest friend. Just as the sun set the city line came into view – a tall wooden fence with no door and no guards. They knew that traveling at night in the woods was dangerous and decided to finish off their journey the next morning. If they had not heard anyone following them thus far, they were not being followed.

They chose not to light a bonfire to cook with, Gilbert claiming to have brought freshly baked bread and spirits with him, not that spirits were all that tolerable at the tender ages of thirteen, twelve, and ten. If they wanted light later, they could make a torch. Gilbert emptied his bag on the floor, the books spilling out first, then a pair of flints and some dry wood, next three flasks of hard alcohol, and finally a large loaf of fresh looking bread. The trio licked their lips.

Elizaveta ripped the bread in two then stored half of it away for later. She broke what was left into three pieces and handed them out to her friends.

"This is good," Roderich observed as he stuffed his face, pushing his lop-sided glasses up his nose. "Who baked it?"

Gilbert preened. "I did. All by myself." He sounded so proud that neither of the other two had the heart to tell him that it left a rather bitter aftertaste.

After their makeshift meal was complete, Roderich bashed the flints together and lit a small stick aflame, so the three could check out the books Gilbert had stolen. Of the five, two were history books and one was an atlas. The young albino was happy to hear that he had grabbed the anthology of children's tales that his bedtime stories had once come from. But the last book was a mystery. It had a plain grey cover with no title and no author on the spine.

"I don't remember grabbing that one," Gilbert said ponderously as the eldest fingered the perfectly sharp edges. "I took the four books next to my father's armchair and I didn't stop after that until I was over the wall."

Elizaveta shrugged. "Maybe it was under them and you didn't notice you'd taken it."

"Believe me, Liz, I would have noticed."

Roderich blinked curiously at the book, stroking it as though it were alive. He pulled the tips of his fingers across the blank cover, leaving behind a strange gold shimmer. His brows drew together. Rubbing at the spot pulled away more and more of the gray until an entire symbol was revealed, gold, shining, and calling his name.

"Guys," he said softly, interrupting their conversation. "Look at this."

Gilbert's crimson orbs darted over the cover and he pulled back. "That definitely wasn't there a second ago. I _know_ that wasn't there a second ago. Tell me that wasn't there a second ago."

"It wasn't," Roderich affirmed, rubbing his thumb over the newly revealed symbol. Elizaveta clamored over and hung off his shoulder, trying to get a closer look.

"What the hell is that?" She snapped, not recognizing the character as any language she'd ever seen before.

Gilbert shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. The only foreign language I know is Contemporary German and it uses the same alphabet."

Roderich frowned. The symbol was odd, certainly, but not foreign. It was almost familiar, in an unfamiliar sort of way. "I think it says my name," he mumbled to himself.

"What?" Elizaveta asked sharply, her hands on her hips though Roderich couldn't see them wile she stood behind him.

"I said, 'I think it says my name'," He repeated. He pointed to the top of the symbol, a soft, concave squiggle, and pulled it down over the hard edges of a horizontal line, trailing off into another convex hook. "Rod-er-ich." He sounded it out as he traced. Yes, it was definitely his name. He put his finger on the circle inside the convex hook and traced the broken circle in there as it pulled through the rest of the symbol on an angle. "Eld-stein."

"I don't see it." Elizaveta dismissed, moving back to her spot next to Gilbert. She pated Roderich on the head as she walked past him and he frowned at her.

"I kind of do," Gilbert said from over Roderich's shoulder. He put his own finger on the cover and Roderich flinched, as if he were touching his own flesh. "I can't explain it, but that part definitely says 'Roderich'."

The older boy gently took Gilbert's wrist and removed it from his book. He then turned it on its side so its spine was in his hand and ran his fingertips over the pages. With the movement of his hand, the book snapped open to a page somewhere near the beginning.

"Well, that…happened." Gilbert murmured, pushing himself closer to Roderich.

"Just the wind," Elizaveta dismissed, pulling out her pocket knife and whittling chip. She leaned against a tree and popped the tail end of a piece of grass in her mouth. "That book's useless, throw it back in the bag and we'll sell it when we run into a peddler."

"No," the boys responded simultaneously, garnering each other a strange look. Roderich shook it off and grabbed the small torch and held it up to the pages. There were more strange symbols on the pages and they were written so small it was difficult for the boy to see them, even with his glasses.

"I can't read those at all," Gilbert said, "Total gibberish." Roderich wondered if his young acquaintance would be able to read the words if he could see them properly. He thought glasses were for 'the stuck-up, educated, scholarly type' and constantly made fun of Roderich for his.

"I think I could read it with proper light," Roderich tried to bring the torch even closer without lighting the pages on fire. "Ah, there."

The squiggles, curves, and jagged edges were similar to those on the cover, but the shapes made sounds that he had never put together into words before. He squinted and bit his lip to be sure he was reading it right before repeating what the first line on the page said.

"_Ecce meus libellus_."

As soon as the words left his lips, the letters on the page lit up with a warm, red glow. A warm breeze swept up around him. The red light spread from the first sentence to the second to the third to the rest of the page and even onto and beyond the next page. The pages flipped themselves as the letters lit and pages followed. Before long, the entire book was aloud with the bright color. Something tickled at Roderich's wrist where he held the spine and when he looked down he almost threw the book into a tree. The letters were seeping off the page and crawling up his wrist, up his arm, up his neck. His arm jerked and the book should have flown off, but it was as if someone had glued it to his hand. He knew he should have been terrified, but he couldn't be. The experience was not scary, it was pleasant, as if he were being pumped full with all of the good of feelings he had ever experienced at once. "E-Elizaveta. Gilbert. What's going on?"

"Holy shit!" Elizaveta exclaimed, drawn from her whittling by the light, dropping her knife. "What did you do?" She got on her knees and looked as though she were contemplating crawling over and pulling the book off of him, but did not. Gilbert was still at Roderich's side, and he seemed to be just as oddly at ease and mystified by what was happening as he did.

"Nothing!" Roderich said as the color and the light faded, the symbols retracting from his skin and leaving him feeling cold and empty. Roderich snapped the book shut and flipped it over in his hands. The cover was now red, his name in the strange characters now black. When he moved his hand over the side with the pages face-up, it flipped open on its own to the page he had previously been on. _Ecce meus libellus_ was now printed in red, whereas the rest of the symbols were black.

"Specks, look!" Gilbert pointed to the older boy's free hand. The same character printed on the cover of the book was there, big, bold, and black like a fresh tattoo. Roderich held his hand in front of his face and shrugged when he could make no sense of what had just happened. "Can I see the book?" the albino asked, holding out his hand. Roderich looked offended, closing the book and pressing it to his chest as if it were his baby.

"Holy shit, Roddy," Elizaveta said, "That's a MagicBook. A real live MagicBook."

The children had heard stories of the MagicBooks before, and how only a few chosen could read them, even fewer use them. The books chose a master to be their BookHolder, with whom it would mark and share all of its secrets. Roderich had known he was different, that was why he had agreed to leave his cushy aristocratic life, but he hadn't known exactly how different he was.

"I…I suppose it is." He said softly. A MagicBook. Had Mr. Bielschmidt known that such a powerful object was in his own library?

"Wow Roddy," Gilbert sighed, a contented smile creasing his features. "A MagicBook. Do you know what that means? It means you can do magic! Show me something! Come on!"

The albino was not the brightest boy but even he should know that Roderich hadn't been passed all of the knowledge in the book in that flashy display of light. Still, it couldn't hurt to try. He waved his hand over the cover of the book and it opened again, this time to a new page. The first line on the top was a single, simple symbol. He sounded it out. "_Lucis._" The page lit up again, this time not with a bright red glow but with warm yellow radiance, as though the sun itself were shining from it. As Roderich lost focus the light died down and he looked back at the word. It too was now in red.

"Wow," Gilbert exclaimed. "That's pretty amazing." For once, the complement sounded sincere.

"This is bad." Elizaveta said after a moment, rubbing her chin with her finger. "The MagicBooks are outlawed. If anyone finds out, we're all dead. For real."

It was true. The magic books were as illegal as murder, and even though it was impossible to opt out of bonding to a book, just owning a MagicBook was punishable by death.

For a moment, Roderich was afraid that Elizaveta would take Gilbert and leave him to his fate. But then, Gilbert broke the silence. "Well then, I guess we'll have to keep this between us. Find a nice quiet place where Specks can practice his magic without being killed and where I can learn swordsmanship and Lizzy can…be Lizzy without anyone telling us otherwise."

Roderich smiled. "Alright."

**A/N: **Hello, lovlies! I hereby present you with a break from my usual melancholy. Still fluffy, but whatever. This started off as a way to procrastinate _X over Y_ but then took a path of its own. I've got two more chapters complete and another in the works, but in no way does this take precedence over _X over Y_, which I have been working my ass of on! I blame by slowness on Model UN which is a LIFE EATER! I should be working on my position paper for GerogaTech right now :P But yeah, this is basically a collection of one-shots in the same universe about children and young-adults who have some kind of connection to magic (not all of them are BookHolders). I know some of the premise is kind of cheesy and that this chapter was very weak (It was a procrastination tool I don't feel like re-writing) but it does get better. Please review and tell me what you think! And please please! If you are reading _X over Y_, vote on my poll! It will affect update frequency! Thank you and I hope you enjoyed.

Also, if there are any disgusting and blunt mistakes, please let me know! You might get something shiny!


	2. Part 2: Alfred

**These Things We Do **

**Part 2: Alfred**

"_Incendi!" _

Alfred flinched. The birds above him took flight and cawed loudly, the sound scratchy in his ears. He should have been used to loud, sudden, painful noises by now, but he wasn't. His big brother's voice was usually so calm and soothing that the harsh commands were like pin pricks on his eardrums.

"_Incendi!" _

Again, Alfred flinched. He wished his brother would stop with this fascination of his and spend time with him. Maybe it was because he was jealous, but Alfred blamed that book for all of the problems between the two of them. Ever since Arthur bought it off that merchant in Rome it was all he ever talked about. "I think I'm getting closer, Alfred!" Arthur would say over the fire at night. "I got a little flame today; I feel it, one day soon, this book will realize that the best master of all is right under its nose!"

Arthur had been teaching Alfred everything he knew about magic ever since he found him lost and alone in the woods all those years ago. Consequentially, Alfred knew that Arthur's magic was so poor because the book didn't want to bond with him. He wasn't sure if the bond between book and servant was something that happened instantaneously or gradually, but either way, it had been nearly two years and Arthur was hardly any better than he was the first week.

"_Incendi!" _This time the call was followed by a little yelp and the rustling of bushes as a small cluster of insects flew past. "Oh my, I did it!" There was some more rustling as Arthur jumped around happily. "My God, I did it!"

Alfred smiled. He didn't know what exactly Arthur had done – something small, undoubtedly – but it had made Arthur happy, which made him happy..

"I…I've got to go tell Alfred!" There were quick footsteps in Alfred's direction and the boy inhaled sharply. He was supposed to have waited for Arthur to finish his 'training' by their camp about a mile away but had followed him as he always did. He dodged into the bushes and only just barely missed being found out. Arthur ran right where he had been sitting. "Alfred! Alfred! I did it!" He called merrily, whooping and jumping as he did.

Alfred sighed in relief. That was close. It wasn't abnormal for him to wander away from camp every once and a while to go exploring while Arthur 'trained', but he was absolutely forbidden from being anywhere near the Magic Book while it was open. Arthur was always babbling on about how dangerous the Magic Books were and would have a conniption if he knew how much danger Alfred was putting himself in.

When Arthur was well out of earshot, Alfred stood up and peeked into the clearing his brother had just left. On the stump he used as a desk was the Magic Book, sitting wide open and all alone.

Alfred sighed, a mischievous smile working on his face. "Arthur. Just like you." He started towards the stump. He knew he wasn't supposed to touch the book, but he couldn't leave it _open_. Sometimes, Arthur said, the books would cast spells all on their own. And besides, when would he ever have the chance to ever touch it again, especially if it chose Arthur as its servant?

Never. Now would be his only opportunity.

He crept towards it even though he knew nobody was watching. It was old but not ratty, it's simple grey cover nondescript and innocent. When he finally stood above it, he could see the strange characters on the page. He remembered the nights before Arthur bought the book, back when they had an actual house and actual food and actual clothes. Arthur would spend hours practicing reading the confusing script aloud; sometimes stories, sometimes history, sometimes the recipes for potions and the like. Alfred had never been allowed to learn the magic language himself, but it couldn't be too hard if Arthur could do it.

He was right. The characters were odd, but familiar, like he already knew the language and was just remembering it. He picked the book up, holding it open with both of his hands. Yes, the characters made some sort of sense in his mind. That one…the one that looked like a sickle…that made the 'yuh' sound…and the convex curve was a syllable, 'rod'. Alfred smiled. No, this wasn't hard at all. He didn't know what any of the sounds meant, but he knew the sounds. Maybe one day he would find his own MagicBook! He stood a little straighter, holding the book out, pretending to be a book servant like his brother wasn't. He smiled. He wondered what those strange syllables would taste like on his tongue…

"_I…Incendi." _

As soon as the word left his lips, the book grew warm in his hand. A second later, flames as tall as the trees and as yellow as the sun spurted forth, very nearly consuming his head. The book sank into his fingers, almost molding around them, and the fire grew steadily hotter – but he was not afraid. He was confused but comfortable, as if all of the questions he had ever asked had been answered and all the discomfort he had ever felt was washed away.

Peace turned to panic when the flames touches the tips of the trees, their dry leaves catching fire almost immediately. Panic swept through him and he starting breathing heavier. He looked down at the book. The words were barely visible beneath the flames, but a particular symbol stood out. It was a square with a backwards "R" imposed over it.

"_Desino!" _

As if a back hole had opened up in the spine of the book, the flames were sucked back in, leaving only burnt trees, ashes, and a few wayward sparks behind.

Alfred let out the breath he had forgotten he was holding. That was close. He understood why Arthur was so paranoid about him touching the book.

He moved to set the book back down on the stump but found he could not. He didn't want to.

Flipping the book over in his hands, he examined the front cover. There was a strange symbol etched in gold…it looked almost like the tracing of the outside silhouette of a house. Instead of a chimney it had a little almost-heart shape with the bottom cut off.

"That says…my name. But…my last name is Kirkland…" _No_, a little voice in his head reminded him, _Arthur's last name is Kirkland. You two don't share blood. _That was true. But it had been so long he couldn't remember what his name had been before Arthur found him. He traced the shapes with his finger. "Alfred Jones."

The cover flipped open and Alfred gasped. He placed his free hand under the other half of the cover. His eyes trailed across the characters until he reached the top. He scrunched his eyes together as he read. _"Ecce meus libellus." _

The book came alive in his hands, the lettering glowing a warm golden hue. The gold spread across the words, down the page, and onto the next, the pages of the book flipping as it spread. The symbols seemed to walk off the pages and up his arms, across his chest around to his back. They were cool and pleasant against his flesh, like an ocean breeze in the evening.

He closed his eyes. There was a pleasant fluttering in the pit of his stomach that he chose to revel in. His intestines were twirling around each other like snakes, a sensation that others might find disconcerting but Alfred loved.

After a few moments, the feeling faded and when Alfred opened his eyes the words had returned to the pages of the book. He smiled. He didn't know what had just happened, but he really wanted it to happen again.

When he moved to turn the pages they moved on their own accord, to an entirely new page. All of the letters on the page were blacker than coal. Somewhere, the back of his mind noted that the cover was no longer grey but goldenrod yellow.

He opened his mouth to say another word from the book when he heard a rustling and looked up.

There, in the same spot that he had entered the clearing from stood Arthur. His mouth was slightly a gape and his hand was extended, as if reaching out to grab something. Alfred's eyes widened and darted between Arthur and the book.

It was Arthur's book. He had touched it. He had _used_ it. That look of hurt and pain and anger in his brother's eyes was unbearable and he knew he should put the book down and beg on his knees for forgiveness.

But…

The very idea of putting the book down and giving it back was even more unbearable. The idea of someone else's hands on his book…he felt violated just thinking about it. It was as if his being had extended outward to encompass the book along with his own body.

He could always tell Arthur he would rather keep it.

But…

Those emerald orbs were furious, betrayed, alight with fiery hate, and he knew that Arthur was going to want the book back no matter what. He could not give the book up even on pain of death. Alfred did the only other thing he could think to do. He ran.

He could hear Arthur's footsteps behind him and he pushed the book to his chest. "Alfred!" Arthur roared, all of the mirth and joviality that was in his voice not even ten minutes ago gone. "Wait, Alfred!"

Alfred did not wait but he knew that soon he would be caught. Arthur was much faster than he was. Somehow, he knew that the book would provide the answer. He pulled the book away from his chest and waved his hand over it. The book opened to a page somewhere in the middle and he knew instinctively that the answer to his problem was there somewhere.

He found it about half way down.

" _Absentis!_"

And just like that, he was gone, Arthur's voice ringing in his ears.

**A/N:** Yay! I don't like this chapter! Sorry, it's a bit...bad. I needed to write something and this happened...I promise, next chapter won't just be a boring description of someone bonding with a book, though it does happen ;) Character request to whoever guesses correctly! But yeah, there is one more chapter in stockpile and another in the works after this, next update will either be next weekend or sometime that week, considering I'm now in the process of editing X over Y. Please tell me what you think of the story and if you have any suggestions for future chapters go ahead and throw them passed me. I might not honor them, but I love brain candy :3 (but if you guess corectly I'll tell you who I've already decided on and you can pick from anyone who doesnt already have a role)

I love you all! Please leave me reviews! Wether it be praise, critisims, or corrections of my horrible grammar/spelling mistakes, feel free to let me know!


	3. Part 3: Gilbert

**Part 3: Gilbert**

The dust didn't move despite the light breeze, the base of the cross rising up from its depths and the ropes that once bound a spellbinder to its appendages strewn half-hazardly atop it.

"This is what happens to people like me," Roderich said quietly. He didn't look at the dust but at the crucifix above it. He said it again to make it real. "This is what happens to people like me."

Gilbert frowned. That was the reality. Spellbinders were not respected for their craft. They were executed as witches. He placed a hand on his older friend's shoulder and opened his mouth to speak.

"Yeah, it is," Gilbert frowned. Elizaveta approached the pile of ashes and kicked the crest of the pile to the wind. The boys both winced. Her eyes were oddly cold as she looked disdainfully at the human remains, a blade of grass wedged between her front teeth. "You burn."

"Lizzie!" Gilbert snapped harshly, turning back to Roderich. His face was devoid of emotion. He was in himself somewhere, trying to answer the questions he could not with his mind with his heart. "I_I'm sorry Roddy."

"I didn't know him." Roderich said coldly, reaching his hand over his shoulder and pulling his rucksack off his back. He kept his MagicBook in that rucksack, so his hands would be free but it was close on hand if he felt he needed it. In the six months since he had bonded with his book he had discovered he was almost as good at magic as he was at music, and had found hundreds upon hundreds of practical uses for many of the spells in his book. He opened the flap and pulled out the red-bound book. Instantly he seemed to calm, the mere connection of his skin to the leather bringing peace to his harried mind.

Gilbert looked between his two friends. Elizaveta looked much older now; she had hips and the beginnings of a bust, and her hair had grown down almost to her shoulders. Roderich also looked older; his face was lean and his shoulders broadening as he began to cusp puberty. Gilbert had remained small and young looking, even though he had recently turned eleven.

"We should…at least give whoever it was a proper burial." Roderich said, waving his hand over the cover of his book. It flipped open to a page near the end.

Elizaveta scratched the back of her neck, looking down at what was left of the pile with mild disgust. "So what, you gonna dig a fancy grave with that book or something?"

"No," Roderich said, shaking his head. "A proper burial for…_us_ is different than it would be for you."

The girl snorted. "Us." She rolled her eyes.

"Try showing a little compassion, Liz," Gilbert groused, lowering himself to his knees beside his friend. "We're all people here. It's not like we're made of different stuff. Says so right in the book; 'we're all made of the same stuff, ultimately, be it stardust or coaldust'."

"I don't listen to those stupid stories Roderich tells you before bed. I don't need to listen to someone else talk to fall asleep anymore." Somewhere above them a bird cawed. The high sun beat down harshly on all their heads, but especially Gilbert's. He was so pale he burned in minutes. "I'm not still a dependent child."

Gilbert stood back up, dusting off his knees and scowling. "Hey, I'm not the one who told me to run away. This was your idea in the first place!"

"What, you would have stayed? I honestly didn't think you would just let your father comb you into the perfect little clergyman, I'd thought you would run away anyway, before he stuck you in a monastery for good this time!" Gilbert flinched. That was a low blow and Elizaveta knew it.

"Of course I would have run away, maybe I would have just waited a little longer first! You know, until my head at least reached the top of the kitchen table!"

"He was sending you away that very next morning and you know it, so don't pretend otherwise!" Gilbert opened his mouth to spit something particularly hurtful about dresses and needlepoint but an outstretched arm from Roderich stopped him.

"Please," He whispered, eyes shadowed by his unwashed bangs. "If you two must argue, do so somewhere else. I don't think this is the right place."

The arguing parties flushed and looked somberly at the pile that had started their quarrel. Roderich was right; a grave was no place for fighting. Elizaveta crossed her arms over her chest and turned her back to the pair. "Fine, do what you will. I'll be over there, pissing." Gilbert watched as she stalked off to find a tree or bush or something. Ever since Roderich had found his Book, Lizzie had been acting very oddly. She was loud and unsympathetic, going out of her way on more than one occasion to insult Roderich's magic and BookHolders in general.

Gilbert felt a little awkward getting back onto his knees now, especially considering the topic of the previous argument. He hoped that Roderich would not ask what he was doing, but he did and he sounded amused.

"I'm, ah, I'm praying. For the dead guy." Gilbert answered lamely, his cheeks burning a cherry red.

"And why are you doing that?" There was a smile in his voice that his face refused to show and Gilbert wondered, not for the first time, if his prolonged discomfort amused his longtime acquaintance.

Fumbling for words, Gilbert ran his fingers nervously through his hair. He did not function well under scrutiny.

"Well, I, ah, I mean, he probably went to church before he was chosen, right? And just because you have a book doesn't mean you don't believe in God. And I know that if I were to die in a fire and be left for fertilizer I would like it if someone would at least…_say _something for me. Put me in the favor of the big man upstairs, you know?" The boy knew his irrational nervousness made him sound stupid but there really was nothing he could do about it. He hoped self-confidence came with puberty.

"Gilbert, you punched a monk in the face. Absolutely nothing anyone could say at your funeral would put you in God's favor." Gilbert smiled as the tension ran out of his body. He could still feel the old coot's blood running down his knuckles. There was silence for a moment as Gilbert remembered the deliciously sickening crunch of a nose being crushed until the elder cleared his throat. "Well, are you going to say something or not?"

Gilbert's eyes widened and he adjusted his position before clearing his throat loudly and beginning. "Dear, uh, God, please watch over this…dead guy. Or girl. I'm not sure, there are no parts left to me to – anyway, please make sure that this person gets where he or she is going. A-and! Please let that be heaven. Or purgatory. Whichever, because ahaha, either one really is better than the alternative." He looked up at Roderich, whose eyes were closed and head was bowed. One hand hovered protectively over his open book. "And, ah, please just…judge…kindly or whatever it is you do. And if BookHolders really are damned like the Church says, please remember that they, ah, didn't choose to be the way they are and they don't deserve what's comin' to 'em. Thanks for listening. Love, Gilbert."

This time the silence was suffocating. Gilbert licked his lips and unfolded his hands, letting them rest open-palmed against his thighs. "The End." He said after a moment, just to be sure that Roderich knew he was done.

He heard the BookHolder inhale deeply but did not look up to meet his eyes. "Gilbert?"

"Yeah?"

"You would have been a terrible priest."

The blond looked up and smiled, grabbing the outstretched hand offered to him. "I know, right? I don't know what Father was thinking. Me? A priest?"

"He was probably hoping a life of quiet solitude and reflection would calm your bloodlust. God knows I did," seeing the look on his friends face, he amended his statement. "Not that I was in favor of shipping you off, I had just hoped that whatever happened you would get the best from it you could. You understand." Gilbert nodded. He did understand. There were times he himself wished he were a bit _calmer_, but there was no way would he have done well under the constant reprimand of a monk, Priest, or Sister of the Church.

Gilbert moved to the side and gestured in the direction the crucifix. "Do you want me to move that or something?"

Roderich shook his head. "It's fine. I can work around it." He placed the hand he had offered to his junior back over the pages of the book and fixed his gaze on its pages. He flexed his fingers and the letters on the page began to glow the color of Roderich's soul – a bright carmine recognizably similar to those of Gilbert's own irises. A cool breeze swept up around the pair's feet and carried on it what had been kicked away of the ashes. The pile was circulated and condensed into a lumpy-looking sphere before it was lifted off the ground to float at the cross section of the crucifix. It morphed in the air as though gravity did not affect it and Roderich moved his hand to face it palm ahead, cupping under it slowly as though he were cradling it in his hand.

" Respice post te." He started, reading the words carefully from the page. Pronunciation was very important in such an art; he was swiftly taught this when he once mispronounced a word and set his trousers on fire. His book had an oddly human sense of humor. "Hominem te esse memento." The shifting blob began to glow a similar red as Roderich's magical essence flowed throughout and within it. Roderich's magic fascinated his younger companion. Watching it almost made him feel good where The Itch did its itching. "Memento mori." With the of-trail of his words, the sphere stopped shifting and the glowing died down until only the grey dust could be seen. Abruptly, the invisible force holding the ashes in the air gave way and it fell to the ground. The sphere shattered like glass and the dust was sucked away into the earth like sponge drew water. All that remained was a grey leather-bound book that was of a color suspiciously similar to that Roderich's book had been before it chose him.

"That was really cool," Gilbert said after a moment of silence. He knew that saying what was essentially a funeral was 'cool' was more than a little insensitive but he was unsure of how to otherwise word it. "How did that book get there?"

"It was under the ashes. The remains of the BookHolder always protect the Book from the mundanes who may want to destroy it. Only after the body is properly disposed of will the book reveal itself again." Roderich closed his book and stretched his back, eliciting small satisfying pops. He was tired now, still being fairly new to complicated spells such as the dead spell, and he yawned loudly.

"Pretty intricate security system, if you ask me."

"It works. Whether or not the book is burned with the body, a BookHolder can always find it in the remains. I'd hate to have to fish one out of a rotting corpse, but I assume it would work in a similar manner. Would you please fetch that book for me Gilbert? I would like to sit down for a moment if you don't mind." Gilbert wordlessly did as he was asked; Roderich only ever said 'please' to Gilbert when he was annoyed, aggravated, or tired, and any one of the three made the BookHolder difficult to deal with.

An almost anticipatory excitement bubbled in the pit of Gilbert's chest as he approached the book and he began to smile as he reached out for it, but it was quickly snatched from his path by a distinctly feminine but unkempt hand.

"Oh no," Elizaveta said, pulling the drawstring of her pants tight with one hand while she tucked the book away under her arm. "Nobody but me is touching this book. We're going to pawn it straight away at the next village. No more inconveniences."

A little something fluttered in Gilbert's chest and he frowned as he straightened himself to his full height. He was just barely above Elizaveta's shoulders. "Roderich's book's not an inconvenience." He said firmly, fixing his red orbs on her. Usually he could only involuntarily scare the pants off of someone with his eyes, and only when he was in one of _those_ moods, but he managed to elicit a shiver from his female friend anyway.

"I never said it was," She said patently, putting a hand on his shoulder. He was tempted to shake it off. "It's just, I don't want either of you thinking we can hang on to it. Doesn't it need to find its next owner or something?"

"_Holder_, and yes it does," Gilbert's eyes rolled to where she was keeping the book between her arm and the side of her chest. She shifted so he could not properly see it. "But whatever happens to it will be what is supposed to happen to it. We can take it with us no problem."

Elizaveta held up a finger. "Big problem. These books attract trouble and exorcists. We've just been lucky that we haven't run into any so far! I'm certain that with an extra book we would be twice as easy to track. Don't you think?"

"No." Gilbert's expression did not waver; he leaned to the side so he could better see the book.

"Well, what do you know, you're just a–" She almost said 'rejected missionary', "Kid. Trust me on this, Gilly."

Gilbert reddened. Nobody had called him 'Gilly' since his mother's…_untimely_ death. "Alright." He wanted to say 'Mumsy knows best" but that probably would have started another argument.

**~Hetalia!~**

Later that evening, the trio set up camp under the crucifix, right where the ashes had been. Roderich said it brought good luck but Elizaveta said it was disturbing. There would have been no point in reminding her that she herself had kicked the remains with her bare feet because she would have found some way to spin the situation in her favor.

As per usual, Gilbert could not fall asleep. He rolled over and over and over, but something about the moonlight and the sounds of the wind and the _huge crucifix above his head _kept him from sleeping. Elizaveta was unconscious a few feet away, her head leaning up against the stalk of the execution device. Gilbert did not understand how she could sleep with her neck crooked like that. Roderich appeared to be studying, a faint light emanating from the pages of his book allowing him to read. Gilbert poked the former upperclassman in the back and grinned sheepishly when he rolled over to look at him, glasses perched crookedly over his nose. No words needed to pass between them. Roderich sat up and made room for Gilbert's head on his lap, pushing his frames up the bridge of his nose. Gilbert took his usual position and looked up at the older man. He was slightly embarrassed and he could feel his cheeks turning pink but he really was still only a child and missed his father, as unsympathetic to his son's plight as he had been. Roderich was almost like Mr. Beilschmidt had been but far more understanding.

Roderich started from where he had left off the night before. "For centuries, those not Bookbound have argued over the practices of magic. The Mages, as the mundanes have dubbed them, while in possessions of the ancient texts of Magyik have not been chosen to hold books. They dedicate their lives to the learning of the arts but do not practice, as to do so would endanger not only themselves but all those whom which they associate." Roderich's voice was always level and smooth when he read like this, and that was partially what helped Gilbert to sleep. The other part he could not describe, but he suspected that the words themselves had something to do with it. "Many a Mage is noted for his or her outstanding…"

Gilbert fell asleep.

But he woke a few hours later to a strange itching at the back of his neck. For a moment he thought it was his affliction, nagging him to get up and do and hunt and hurt, but he soon realized that it was not. This itch was almost pleasant.

_Gilbert. _

He snapped up then flinched, worried he had woken Roderich. The older man was still asleep, straight-backed as usual. The younger still did not understand how his companions could sleep sitting upright.

_Gilbert. _

There it was again! He turned his head around but could not locate the speaker. Perhaps it was a Nightshader – one of the creatures described in Roderich's book – come to take his soul! He was tempted to pull out his rosary until he remembered he left it on his bedroom desk along with his bible and that damned iron cross he had always worn.

_Gilbert, it wants you. _

Ah! He found it! Slowly, he crept towards Elizaveta, tediously moving her arm to find the book. Yes, as soon as he touched it, he knew that it had been what was speaking. She hadn't seemed to hear it, considering she continued to snore on as if nothing had happened.

_It wants you to open us. _

The almost-albino looked at the book curiously. It had worse grammar than he did.

He flipped it over in his hand and peeled back the cover; it was heavy against his palm but moved almost effortlessly, as if he weren't even touching it. The grey was friendly but he didn't want to leave grease marks on it; the last thing he needed was Elizaveta finding out he had touched it.

The twirly and sharp letters written in there were similar to the ones in Roderich's book, but he couldn't be sure if they were exactly the same. They seemed to blur together slightly. He flipped the pages arbitrarily until one caught his eye. One line at the very top of one of the pages. Here the symbols seemed to squirm and he squinted to try and see them.

_Ech…Ekk…Ekka_…He sighed in frustration, leaning back on one of his hands. Trying to read in the dark was giving him a headache. Trying to read in general gave him headaches. A few minutes later he tried again, whispering the words quietly to himself. "Ecke…Ecce…M-mm..." He finally gave up. He knew he had bad vision, though he would never say so. But…he looked over to his sleeping companion; his glasses were perched on his nose.

He wasn't using them while he was sleeping, and he certainly didn't need to know that Gilbert was borrowing them so long as he put them back before he woke up. With a swish and a snatch they were in his hands and then on his face. He had never been caught any more off-guard. Never before had the world been so clear!

Down on the page, the symbols were whispering to him and he returned his attention to them. Reading the tiny print was almost easy now. "_Ecce meus libellus verendus_." He said it before his mind recognized it and soon the air was filled with the strong scent of lilac and there was a tingly dance going on on his skin. It was too dark to see much other than the book, which was now illuminated a crisp cerulean blue. It made him feel good and he smiled.

_We are glad you like it. _The voice said, the pages of the book flipping through themselves as an invisible paintbrush took interest in the back of his right hand. _Now you may rest, it says. _

He did. He fell asleep almost instantly, the book still glowing, his skin still tingling. For the first time in five years, he slept soundly, his book protecting him from both nightmares and memories.

**A/N:** I lied. _This_ is the last time I describe when someone gets a book :P I didnt realise until after I had edited it that I do go into a little detail there, but not as much as the last chapters. Please tell me what you think, and if anyone wants to see a specific character later in the story, tell me who and what you would like to see them do! If they havent already gotten roles, I'll try to incorperate them! Please be sure to review and tell me what you think, especially how you think I could improve. Now, I must go. I have Chemistry homework and an essay to do, and I need to study for the MUN conference! I love you all!

Also, I lied about _X Over Y_ too. The new chapter will be up by next weekend though.


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